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Monday, January 16, 2012

Orange Olive Oil Cake

"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes they have the biggest piece."

-Ludwig Erhard

I wanted to make a simple orange cake. I made a few actually. I don't post every cake I bake. I have days where I make a few items I plan to post, but don't because I'm not excited about them, or I don't think I would make again. I want this blog to be filled with only recipes I'm proud of.

Making the batter

That mentality is great, sure, but the result is that I don't post here as often as I'd like. But I'm willing to give up quantity for quality.

I was working on getting the right texture of this cake while being big on orange flavor. I like to use frozen orange juice concentrate because I usually have it on hand to make an Orange Juli-ish on the fly. (Lately I've been making them with less liquid, to be more like a soft serve, yum.) And the juice concentrate allows you to get a stronger orange flavor than just regular orange juice would provide. The texture of this cake is reminiscent of pound cake, although not quite as dense.

ready to go into the oven, I always put a spingform pan onto a baking sheet in case of leakage. This cake didn't leak, thankfully.

This cake is filled with the orange juice concentrate, lots of orange zest, and if you want even more orange flavor, you can add a bit of orange extract.

Beautiful browned cake. My cake cracked in the middle, then I made the crack bigger by placing a knife inside of it to test for doneness. Oh well.

I'm in love with this glaze. It's sweet and tangy, it pairs perfectly with this moist and tender cake. I poked holes in the cake so the glaze can really get in and give you another punch of orange flavor.

the sweet and tangy glaze

I poked holes in the cake with a skewer so the glaze could sink in

This cake is perfect for an afternoon tea, or snack. It's also super easy. Delicious, moist and easy. A cake I'll happily sign my name to.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the orange juice concentrate, sour cream (or yogurt), sugar, eggs, olive oil, orange extract, (if using) and orange zest, mix well. Add the flour mixture and mix well again for about a minute, scrape down the sides and make sure all is incorporated.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. When the cake is done, make the glaze.

To make glaze, add all glaze ingredients to a small saucepan. Mix and cook on high heat till it comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium and let boil for 5 minutes or so stirring constantly, until it is sticky and slightly thick. It will get thicker as it cools a bit.

When the cake is done, let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove sides of springform pan. Poke holes in the cake all over with a skewer. Place a baking sheet under the wire rack to catch glaze. Pour the glaze all over the cake. Let it sit for another 10 minutes or so to let the glaze absorb, then pour more glaze onto it. Let it sit again for another 10 minutes. So the idea is that the glaze is hot while pouring it in the first and 2nd time, then when you are putting the final amount of the glaze on, it's cooler and thicker to sort of, sit on top of the cake almost like if it were jelly or jam.

Gena- Thank you for the question. No, you cannot sub regular orange juice for the concentrate. Orange juice concentrate is very much stronger and concentrated than regular orange juice.

So to substitute regular orange juice you would need to use about 3times more juice than concentrate, and then boil it down on the stove in a pan to reduce it, and concentrate it. Doing that you've made your own concentrate that you can substitute in the cake. I hope that helps.

Dearest Melissa, I have made this cake twice now for morning meetings and it is always a "hit!". I used a total of 4 tablespoons orange rind in the cake and doubled the glaze, making larger holes for it to sink into (I LOVE orange, as you can tell!). Thank you so much! Sincerely, Stephanie

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Frank Lloyd Wright

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Marianne Williamson

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